Life is all about the little moments and the little things, I share mine here in my Castle of Dreams

FAMILY

From my window I saw summer go by… from my window, I saw my thoughts go wild… I still wonder why I didn’t get to say goodbyeOh Summer beautiful … liquid dreams and all…Can’t take away the beauty of Autumn or Fall, Winter and cold, having their own memories their own soul.Fire cracking, book diving, dreaming begins again…Contemplating that all is possible… didn’t I feel before the same? .I find over and over that life repeats itself, I’m always starting over or at least it feels this way……Despite all the beginnings … the decades we left back, some things will never change, the language of silence, the feeling of touch, those arms and legs intertwined like an abstract piece of art…..A tiny home is enough when your heart is in the right place……waiting is a joy when you know who you are waiting for… When you have somebody else…Family oh family … we all have different walks but isn’t it just perfect, isn’t it the best when we can come together putting things to rest, when we can get together and stop?…and there they go again, leaving my soul all warm, but I love the sound of silence and I love my time alone…Warm wine, cossy feet, a good book …and somebody to share them with…I wish you all tomorrow, along with a cup of JOY, to have someone to share, the birth of our LORD…

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Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I’m so grateful to be able to appreciate all the blessings we have; Sometimes I still catch myself bothered by minimal things that, under the light of the Paris tragedy , shouldn’t even face me, but I’m spoiled and impatient and need to be reminded how precious life is and how it all can change in a split second.

I’m so grateful for my family, they are my everything, it shouldn’t matter that we live in different places of the country and of the world, what matters is that we are alive and that we love each other and we have each other’s back.

I’m grateful for friends, real ones, the ones that stay with you when you are down and cheer for you when you are up. They are rare and precious and we should treasure them for the blessing they are.

I’m grateful for the little moments and the little things, those that fill us with joy and hope, making it all worth it; the moments we hold on to forever to remember anytime we want or need to. We only need to take the time to bring them back, pause for a while and accept them for what they are, presents from God, the opportunity to relive and experience the love again, perhaps not in the same way we would like to, but not less real for that so… We realize as we age, that we almost don’t know anything, The more we live, the more we learn, the better we understand how little our grasp of the universe is, how minuscule our understanding of the power of the brain… How limited our perception of the greatness of the soul!

Today, after complaining for days about my computer’s wireless mouse freezing all the time, after being frustrated because even though I bought a new mouse I still can’t connect it to the computer because I can’t sinc them! Today I realized I still have an iPad and an iPhone to THANK YOU for the more than 16,000 visits to my little blog… More than 16,000 visits to my only 37 posts…. I’m humbled and grateful…. Even though for some bloggers that number might be small, it is not to me! it means the world to see people from all over the world in here, specially all the people from France these last days… I’m GRATEFUL for you all and I’m sending you my love.

I’m writing this on my phone and I’m not good at revising what I write, so forgive me for the mistakes, I just want you to know that I do feel you and I do appreciate you.

Finally and more importantly, I’m grateful for God, for His Love and teachings, for my faith, for always asking me to love and respect all, for asking me not to judge. For expecting me to help and serve others regardless. For asking me to be humble and for teaching me that joy is only found in love and compassion for all, for teaching me that there is no joy in a mean spirit who only looks up for its self and self gratification. For teaching us that we come from light and we come from love, that we are all one and that we need each other to connect with the source of it all. His love. I’m grateful that my God never asked me to kill and hate others in order to be able to go to heaven and I’m grateful I was never taught otherwise. Not everybody is that lucky.

My Thanksgiving tablescape

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When my kids were little I use to drive my bicycle everywhere and sometimes I took them with me sitting behind directly on the grill… Oh, my … only the thought of it sends chills down my spine and through my whole body!… It was a time of no helmets and no bicycle paths… we didn’t overthink things as much back then, but some, we definitely should have!

The one who shared those rides with me the most was my little piggy, the youngest of them all, who at the time was going to a Preschool called “Louis Pasteur”.

One day I arrived to pick him up and found him standing at the door with his little lunchbox waiting for me, very entertained in conversation with the watchman, the school’s security guard who stood there every day and at all times.

Riding with boys…

As I approached them he started telling me everything about their conversation and introduced me to his friend – Mommy, this is my friend Louis Pasteur! – he said very proudly and excitedly, I smiled and said hi, but tried to correct him about the confusion. He wouldn’t have it. The watchman WAS Louis Pasteur to him. He had seen him every single day, at all hours standing there, guarding the School, so he “knew” that was “his” school, Louis Pasteur’s School! I had to live it alone. Not worth destroying such cuteness!

best moments in life

Many years later, he told me that he was actually terrified with traffic and the way I rode, sitting there on my bike, in the middle of that traffic and noise, completely exposed… while I thought he was enjoying it …. suddenly one of my sweetest memories was now a horrible one of child endangerment and child abuse! … I wish I could go back in time, hold him so tight against my heart and change many, oh, so many things, so he would never have to be scared again… at least not because of me…

…and on top of everything, now she’s coming to pick me up again in that bloody bicycle!If I could turn back time…

Memories that fall out of nowhere, like leaves in Autumn, surprising and delighting us, just not in this case anymore… and I thought, that maybe if I wrote about it, I could possibly…. I don’t know what I thought… but we don’t get do-overs in life, do we?…

… but he grew up to be an awesomely brave, smart and strong US Marine, in spite of me… or MAYBE, just maybe, even a little bit, because of me! I wish I could know….It should be mandatory to go to school to be a parent, it amazes me there aren’t any laws about that yet…...Moms and boys….

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My beloved iMac needed surgery and just got a new hard drive. Is that considered heart surgery for computers, or is it brain surgery?! I don’t get it … Aren’t Apples supposed to be better than oranges in that respect? ! Aren’t they supposed to be above all that mundane suffering?!

Friendly and super cute! One of the girls working at Sweet Pete’s in Jacksonville, Florida. She stopped for the picture without hesitation or even being asked!

Two or three months ago my computer started acting sluggish and it only got worse with time. When we got to Florida, it pretty much stopped working, it was making these painful noises, like if it was struggling to breathe… I was heartbroken. The last days have been frustrating, I had missed blogging and didn’t want to lose momentum. The fact that I was finally posting on a more regular basis (at least compared to my own self!) made me feel more confident and kind of hopeful for at least consistency, until I find my substance…

What a wonderful place to be!

We have been dealing with The Geek Squad, she and I . Actually, she had to deal with them more than I ’cause she was the one who had to stay overnight in the Jacksonville store while I went back to St. Augustine. To say that I was surprised to find out St Augustine didn’t have a Best Buy store is an understatement! Who doesn’t have a Best Buy?! Not that I like that store particularly. Actually, I don’t. But in this day and age, you can’t survive without an Apple store and one with a geek squad nearby, can you?!… Well, I know! Jacksonville is nearby….I get it! Who can survive without that kind of stores I asked?! Answer to self: Those wholive with beautiful, white sandy beaches in their front and backyards and don’t want anything to ruin that! That’s who! and that’s why I’m moving here! Duh! Because it reminds me of my absolutely beautiful city, Trujillo, in Peru, were I was born and where I grew up, the way the city was during my childhood…but that is a subject for another post! PERU (Where the heck is the accent wordpress people?! -I know where the accent is. Don’t answer. I just don’t want to switch keyboards all the time) Today I tried to use my computer with its brand new heart, or brain, or heart …whichever! only to realize it was still slow, but in a different way. It might have to do with the internet speed. Tomorrow I’ll have to call the geek squad again and deal with those mundane maladies. ( The viruses, not the actual geeks!) Actually, the Geek Squad said it was the hard drive, no viruses.

Arriving to Sweet Pete’s after a little struggle finding a parking space.I walk to the corner to get a better angle.…and there it was!

The good news for me was that because I had to go to Jacksonville every day -only a 40 minute drive- I had plenty of opportunity to visit SWEET PETE’S, a one of a kind candy store that was featured in THE PROFIT (I like MARCUS LEMONIS! he seems to be a very nice guy) It was one of my favorite episodes and I really, REALLY, despised the bad guy and I really, REALLY liked the good guy, PETE!

Almost there! I wanted to meet Pete, but more than anything, I wanted to meet the bad guy, so I could make him an offer he couldn’t refuse… at the same time I had the hope that they were able to get rid of such a negative and shady partner and that he wasn’t going to be around anymore.

I had a great time taking pictures and admiring everything. What a great, happy and colorful place to be! full of old fashion hand made candy and joyful children young and old!!! That Sunday I was actually dropping family at the airport and had a really nice brunch there at Sweet Pete’s, all by my self, it was Father’s Day. The only sad note was missing my husband with whom I spoke several times that day, and I was missing my dad… But I couldn’t do anything about that. I haven’t been able to do anything about that for almost four years in September.

Finally I was here! I wasn’t planning to come that day, but took advantage of the situation to make my bucket list shorter. My secondary bucket list. The one you make mentally as you go, while you watch a program, read an article or hear a conversation. “I have to make sure I visit that restaurant/store/museum/cafe/etc” Not the one where you have: “Dance a Tango with Al Pacino in the Oak Room” ( I cried when I learned it closed for good…) “Have Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (I don’t have the top of Mount Everest in mine. Hell no)Dance a Tango with Al Pacino at The Oak Room…. This was a moment in time, for sure.…Will never come true… but it happened many times in my mind!Have Breakfast at Tiffany’s… in the past 😉… But there is always something special in all the little moments that conform our lives. I believe it is as I say at the beginning of this blog: “Life is all about the little moments and the little things” Don’t you think so?… ( And I share mine, here, in my little Castle of Dreams..)There is something about TV that make things more special. They become more than places. It’s more about the people and the history behind it, than the places themselves.It reminded me a little of my second Window Display at school! You see? I knew already how the store came about and how deserving the owner was of the success!If it wasn’t about the people and their stories these places would remain only places, cute stores but they couldn’t compete with spaces like this Starbucks cafe in London…. Next picture please.This is a freaking Starbucks for god’s sake! (yes, god’s with lower case, I wouldn’t take His name for this, I’m talking about the lesser gods people!)How I would love to have my store, my imaginary store here! I would decorate the heck out of it and I’d would have crazy fun creating the most beautiful window displays!!!! You lost me… I’m already dreaming….Lo-ve-ly!..Ready! I’m gonna have me some brunch! (Just trying to sound like a southerner!)My coffee, waiting for my tomato, Kalamata olives and feta Omelet.The Cafe is a concession, I was disappointed! That might explain why they have only one Willy Wonka picture up there looking too small and out of scale..That girl is gorgeous! the one with the hot pink tank top.This pretty girl.When I took the picture I wasn’t focusing on anything in particular but when I saw it latter on at home I thought I might have annoyed some people with my pictures! So sorry, nobody seemed to mind..Oops! I think I did looking at her expression..I love windows and what you can see through them..This is probably the part where you want to run! This is where my love of pictures is unleashed and I go crazy sharing them…. still, if you are like me… I hope you enjoy them!Isn’t this cute?! You can see it from the outside in the next pictureSecond floor, the balcony on the leftHis and hers…and one more for little bear!I forgot to mention, I didn’t try any candy! It didn’t even come to mind. That is so me. I can go to a place for something and come back with everything else but that. One of my kids has a good story about me going to buy coffee…..OMG!..I run to the door/window just to see the view it framed!.That mom and baby were so precious!...Old fashion cotton candy! and GORGEOUS CHANDELIERS!!!A red chandelier among many!Jewels hanging from the ceiling..Happy Father’s day guys!!!! Look at his backpack full of baby stuff! What about the pink blanket and precious cargo in his hands?! Who wouldn’t melt at this sight?What a pretty sight! Those adorable green dresses…Aren’t grandpas the best?!What a blessing to be able to be together three generations or even more..I need more color in my life!It’s all about family.Surrounded by trees..Looking at everything through the eyes of a child… PricelessCan I give you a hug?...I love Visual Merchandizing! After my first window at school they sent me to a store to do their windows!Color and more color!It’s a colorful life!Shall we go to the third floor?Yes, Let’s!Be careful, it looks a bit dark in the camera…Of course there is an elevator! It is prettier this way though !Too many pictures of the same thing right?… sorry! I couldn’t capture the light coming through the pretty window!Here is where they teach groups how to make candy and also host some showers and parties! It wasn’t being used but of course they let us tour it 😉Impecable!One of the many nooks and crannies of the place.What a great place for children to learn and open their imagination!Perhaps if given the choice, one would rather be at the Café de FloreCafé de Flore…Or Les deux MagotsOmelettes au Les Deux Magots…Having croissants `a Paris. But you do what you have to do, find the beauty of each moment and each place, it is all we have. NOW..It’s time to go, Pete wasn’t there, I was told he is around all the time, I’m planning to go back to see if I get to meet him! At least I got to see that Pete in the picture and it was enough for now…Good bye friends! Come and visit again! This is one guy who created many jobs and helped revitalize downtown. All downtowns need that. Thanks Pete!

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My father loved poetry, he used to recite poems all the time as he walked around the house. “To Christ crucified” was one of my favorites, it always managed to move me to unspoken tears … In spite of being too young to comprehend how deep those words were, I always had a profound feeling of respect and sadness at the same time every time I heard them. The tone of his voice, the intensity and the feeling he had behind those words were powerful… My father was an agnostic or so he said… I think he wanted to be and tried hard to make others believe he was. There were some moments like those ones when he recited this poem that lead me to believe later on that he was just trying, as strange as it might sound, to protect himself of hope. Many of us try hard to stop believing so we can’t be hurt anymore. We try to stop believing in real love and decency, in human integrity and character, we try to stop believing in fairness and possibilities, even in God. We feel all grown up and too smart to believe…even though there is something inside of us that needs desperately to do so and never, ever stops searching, even in all the wrong places, for that light that seems to start inside of us and needs to connect to it’s source, a much bigger and powerful light, in order to continue to exist. It is then, when we cease to believe, that we become broken, empty lanterns without a fire, without a purpose… It saddens me to accept that I, as well, had walked away from the light inadvertently, not completely, not that far, still far enough to experience such darkness… I love little Albert Einstein’s explanation to his teacher about darkness not existing and been impossible to be proven scientifically, he said it is only the absence of light. Researching the story a while ago I found out it was an urban legend… I was heart broken and refused to believe it wasn’t real so I decided right there and then to hold on to it, for as long as I could… too much beauty and truth in it to let go.

My father lost his mother when he was a little boy, I can only imagine how hard it must have been… I think that had a big influence on him trying to live his life without faith or hope. He never said it but it makes sense to me now… it’s made sense to me for a while actually, specially since he died in September of 2011. It’s helped me greatly to believe that he actually, deep, deep down, in a dark, quiet corner of his heart, believed… the way he recited this poem with such sorrow and passion… There were a few things and moments during his life where we were able to see signs of his lost faith since he went to Catholic school. Those moments had given me hope that he has finally reunited with his Mother and that I will see him again, joyful and in peace, without pain, the way it was intended to be… and he will hold me and comb my hair and tell me how pretty and smart I am again…

Father and daughter

Here is the translated poem and the original.

Sonnet to Jesus Crucified

I am not moved, my God, to love You
by the heaven that You have promised me
and I am not moved either by hell so feared
as the reason to stop offending You.

You move me, my Lord, it moves me to see You
nailed to a cross and your flesh destroyed,
what moves me is to see your body so injured,
what moves me is your suffering and your death.

What moves me, finally, is your love, and in such way,
that even if there was no heaven, I would love You,
and even if there was no hell, I would fear You.

You don’t have to give me for me to love You,
so even if what I hope for I did not hope,
the same that I love You, I would love You.

This week, as we remember Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, I better realize what happens when we extinguish the light. We are surrounded by what we perceived as darkness, we are surrounded by the absence of THE LIGHT.

It is finished…The beginning… Vierge Aux Anges, William Adolphe Bouguereau.The Joy..The Light, William Adolphe Bouguereau’s The Virgin of the LiliesThe darkness, William Adolphe Bouguereau’s PietàThe hope, Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child. Church of our Lady, Bruges, Belgium.The sorrow, Michelangelo’s Pietà. St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City.L’Innocence, William Auguste Bouguereau…. The world making sense !Betrayal: To deliver or expose to an enemy by treachery or disloyalty. The taking of Christ by Caravaggio, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.Madonna della Seggiola, detail. I am totally captivated with this painting, Mary’s face and expression are beyond beautiful, the look in her eyes mesmerize me !…. I’m at a loss for wordsRaffaello Sanzio, Madonna della Seggiola, Florence, ItalyThe world gone mad…The beauty of colors. The Star of Bethlehem by Edward Burne-Jones. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England.The PasionOf love and familyThe teachings and examplesAbout hypocrisy and cowardly…. Ecce Homo by Antonio CiseriA child … a Teacher, Jesus in the TempleEntry of Christ into Jerusalem. Van Dyck. Hosanna!The last Supper. Leonardo da Vinci. Santa Maria delle Grazie, MilanMadness… The Elevation of The Cross, Triptych by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens. Cathedral of our Lady, Antwerp, BelgiumPeter Paul Rubens, The Elevation of the Cross, I find confusing that both versions are different, no idea which one is the original…The BeginningThe endThe world as it is supposed to be. Christ in the House of his Parents by John Everett Millais, Tate Britain, LondonFisher of menJesus with fishermen by Jean van Orley, in Sint Salvador, Brugge, Belgium.The Light, the Hope, Leonardo da VinciThe road less traveled…We all carry our crossAnd know that I am with you always, yes, to the end of timeKing of kings, Lord of lordsChrist crucified by Diego Velázquez. Museo del Prado, Spain

Hello everybody! where did time go?! I’ve been really busy lately, traveling and working in a design project, among other things, in St. Augustine, and without realizing I almost forgot I have a blog … Not that I had been writing much since I started, I’ve been rather inconsistent about it, in spite of that I enjoy it immensely… What happens is that I have the impression, or at least I kid my self with the idea that nobody is going to read this, that it is just a kind of personal, kind of private sort of thing… and then I get a bit nervous when I see that I’d had visitors from all over the world…. how did that happened?! How is that even possible?! I know other bloggers are so used to it, not me, I still find comfort in anonymity and the lack of pressure that comes with not having a lot of people following you… in the other hand, deep down, you have the desire of being validated by people finding some value in your words… It’s complicated…

A few pictures of my visit to St. Augustine, Florida. This is one of the two Carrara marble Medici lions, flanking one of the entrances of “The Bridge of Lions” One of the prettiest in the countryThe second lion, they were made by the Italian sculptor Romanelli, and are copies of the ones in The Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, Italy.Bridge of LionsPeacefulOpen bridge, cars are waiting for the ships to finish crossing, it is a pretty sight! The cars even seem to be enjoying the wait with those views.The GalleonImpressiveWhere two worlds mix togetherWhat an experience!

I took the time and looked, day by day, where all those visitors came from, WordPress shows all sorts of data like that, (I imagine also every other host in the planet) how many visits you had per day and where in the world your visitors came from… This is so COOL and I can’t believe it! People from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands, Greece, Russia, Germany, United Kingdom , Kuwait, Finland, Hungary, Chile, Austria, Kenya, Egypt, Korea,(I assume South Korea, right?! I don’t think Kim Jong-Un was reading my blog, since he is pretty much the only one with internet access in North Korea … I don’t take that matter lightly, just not the place or time to discuss it……. – And I went back and looked again, it clearly says: South Korea!) Perú, Slovenia, Argentina, India, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Australia, Poland, Norway, Spain, Portugal, Honduras, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong SAR China, Serbia, Jersey, Andorra, Iceland, Algeria, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Bermuda, Colombia, European Union, Brazil, Italy, New Zealand, Slovakia, Bangladesh, Romania, Mexico, Turkey, South Africa, Latvia, Czech Republic, Japan, Montenegro, Vietnam, Croatia and Reunion! Really? Jersey?! Is that even a country?… Never mind! I just Googled it and of course it is … I feel ashamed… (not really, not that much, how can I keep up with the new configurations of old nations and all the changes the world’s had and continue having?! … I should, but I don’t..)

– AND THERE THEY ARE! THE HAPPY CITIZENS OF JERSEY! SORRY GUYS…

I still can’t believe that somebody found me and took the time to read what I wrote… shocking…outstanding…mind blowing…scary… humbling…

Impatience has to be one of my biggest flaws. I can’t just write this and let it sit and then come back later or the next day and finish it. The way I see it, or I should say, the way I feel it, is that I’m just sharing this with a group of my friends, in a very informal and relaxed way….that’s why I talk about impatience, if somebody else apart from them is going to read any of these posts, I would/should take the time to correct them and try to make them better… But then again it wouldn’t feel right, it is not who I am, I’m not here pretending to be a writer, I’m just trying to share a little bit of my journey “Here on Earth” and the things I love…. My love of photography shows in my life in so many ways… pictures inundate every corner of it, my head and my phone, and I inundate the people in my life with them! My poor kids complain often, from wherever in the world they are at the time, about me sending too many photos, but I really believe that in time, they will be happy I did, and very glad to have them. There is a reason why when there is a fire, one of the first things people grab is just that, their pictures. Family is the great motivator in life, either the family you were born in, or the family you created yourself with friends and your own family.

I find photography fascinating, I see it as life itself frozen forever in time in a frame …. Isn’t that something?! perhaps that is why it is so popular to share your life in pictures in so many ways through the internet. People have a need to be seen or to be heard and they measure success with the number of “friends” or followers they have…. when success is found in the ability of living your life doing something you have a passion for, surrounded by the people you love, in peace with yourself and really liking the man or woman staring you back in the mirror!

Not to break a good habit, I’m sharing some pictures of the beautiful city of St. Augustine, where I spent my last month and a half, I hope you enjoy it and perhaps get motivated to visit this wonderful place. xx

My first night, dinner at O.C. White’s, a really nice place with live music and a dog friendly policy.

Dog friendly restaurantsThe best part of the night was spending time with my daughter who had just moved to St Augustine a few months agoFrench bakery and pâtisserie, Les Petits Pleasures were we had a really nice “dejeuner”, I didn’t get the name though, half french and half english…I totally loved the european vibe and the relaxed “laissez faire” atmosphere they haveA nice walk after dinner to experience the city and the beautiful sites of the oldest european settlement in the United Statesa walk to remember…It really was like going back in time, to a place I had never been before, to a time I had never known, and yet, it still felt so familiar…

The next pictures are obviously from another day…

Many pretty houses along the street facing the Matanzas riverEnchantedI was delighted!There were so many …Many pretty houses along the street facing the Matanzas riverLovely!

Up to here, all photos are mine.

At this point, after a long day of flying and emotional reunions, my phone had died, so it left me with no choice but getting some pictures from the internet to show you how pretty the city looked illuminated with thousands of lights for the Christmas season. I was told it had been very hard to walk, let alone drive, in the city up to a week before. I arrived on January 20th, so things had calmed down already and I was able to enjoy the sites without the commotion!

The Lightener MuseumThere is something really special about this city that appears to be frozen in time..The Bridge of Lions all decked out for the holidays, casting it’s spell on the Matanzas river…Festival of lights around the holidaysThe city has a violent history …What a beautiful view!Bay frontFlagler CollegeCastillo de San Marcos at nightSan MarcosBridge of Lionsat night..Mysterious..Tree covered street in St AugustineThe LionsPresbyterian churchThe Carrara marble lions , west end of the BridgeI’ll be coming back really soon!

– SO…WHAT DO YOU THINK? HAVE YOU ALREADY VISITED ST AUGUSTINE? IF NOT, HOPEFULLY THIS HELPED YOU GET MOTIVATED TO DO SO AND ENJOY ALL THE BEAUTY AND HISTORY THE CITY HAS TO OFFER. I’M GOING BACK AT THE END OF APRIL, SO I WOULD LOVE ANY SUGGESTIONS ABOUT WHAT NOT TO MISS! MORE PHOTOS TO COME IN THE NEXT POST 😉